CVS and cigs, open primaries, and Crist: Letters

At last! Someone has finally stepped up to the plate to do the responsible thing. CVS pharmacy deserves great praise for its initiative to discontinue sales of tobacco products from its stores.

It has never made any sense that a product that has long been proved to cause severe health issues and even death is being sold in an establishment that sells medications and other products to improve our health.

Yes, it will mean a severe cut to profits, and that is even more to CVS' credit that it took this giant step. All establishments that sell medications and health foods should join in this brave endeavor to make us a stronger nation.

Next on the list should be all the products that are sugar-laden and genetically modified products. Classes that are more nutrition-oriented should be added to the curriculum in our schools. It will be a long road uphill, but with this first step taken by CVS, we can achieve a more healthy nation.

Virginia P. Beagle Fruitland Park

I find the action taken by CVS pharmacy to stop selling tobacco products to be quite bizarre. If CVS is so health conscious, I suggest the company remove a great many products from store shelves.

Absent should be candy, sugary and salty snacks, wine, beer, soda, diet pills and supplements (not regulated), and even some prescription drugs meted out in the pharmacy that could be delivered in wrong dosages, causing illness or even death.

CVS self-righteously pats itself on the back as making a major contribution to "health" and insinuates that other drugstores should follow suit. CVS comes across as an overly solicitous guardian: We know what's good for you so we'll take away one of your poor choices.

Of course, CVS has the right to decide what it wants to sell, but this latest decision to ban a legal product will not benefit anyone and will likely harm the company's sales. If I were a smoker, I would head for Walgreen's next time I needed a pharmaceutical product, and consequently I would buy other items there, too.

Are we to believe that Floridians can't be found to do these jobs? It appears that employers are eager not so much for workers, but for the cheapest possible workers.

The only immigration reform under consideration would suppress wages and displace American workers by flooding the labor market with millions more low-wage workers selected for their availability to work for low wages. This will spare employers the expense of offering decent pay and benefits to attract employees. More middle- and low-income Americans will slip into poverty for the sake of keeping labor costs low and enhancing employers' profits

This amounts to a particularly malignant form of corporate welfare. More full-time workers will qualify for a multitude of welfare benefits because they make so little money, leaving the taxpayers to bridge the gap between wages and the cost of living. Importing cheap labor sends a big bill to the taxpayers.

Immigration reform in its present form will increase poverty directly by importing poor people to feed the appetite for cheap labor, and indirectly by undercutting American workers' earnings and job prospects. It is a gift to lobbyists that will cut Americans' throats, and should be rejected.

David Falstad Winter Park

Open primary would invite manipulation

Wednesday letter-writer Choice Edwards thinks Florida should not have closed primaries. He calls it legal coercion to force a primary voter to have to associate with a party.

In other words, one should not have to belong to any participating party to vote. That means, for example, that independents could help select the Democrat or Republican candidate for an upcoming election.

But wait: What is the purpose of primary elections? Their purpose is to provide the means for a political party to select its candidate for whatever election is coming. Should nonparty members have any say in selecting that candidate? The answer, of course, is no, they shouldn't. Allowing it would make no sense and also provide too much opportunity for voting manipulation.

Edwards also thinks Florida ex-felons should be allowed to vote. Thirty-five states have some type of voting restriction for felons after they are released from prison. Why? Because committing a felony is a bad thing. Homicide, battery, assault and carjacking are some felony examples. A felon's voting restriction should be viewed as part of the sentence.

Florida felons can have their voting rights restored, but they have to jump through hoops to get it. And for good reason — they have proved they are untrustworthy citizens.

Bill Bradow Oviedo

Crist is Dems best?

What is all this hullabaloo about Charlie Crist running for governor again? Can anyone recall any significant accomplishments during his past term as governor? Hmmm, let's see. He popularized tanning booths.